Dr. William Gerthoffer, left, professor and chair of the USA department of biochemistry, and Dr. Clara Massey, right, chief of the USA division of cardiology talk about how a grant from the National Institutes of Health will help their research into early indicators of cardiovascular disease. (Lyle W. Ratliff/University of South Alabama)

MOBILE, Alabama -- The University of South Alabama Center
for Healthy Communities has been awarded a five-year, $7.5 million research grant to
help learn about and eliminate differences in health between communities in Mobile County.

"The fight against health disparities is a tough
one," said Dr. Errol Crook, Abraham Mitchell professor and chair of
internal medicine at USA's College of Medicine. "It requires an
army."

The grant will continue community engagement work already started by the Center
for Healthy Communities. It will also fund pilot programs designed to learn
more about what causes health differences in high-risk communities, figure
out how to address the problem and learn how to effectively talk to policy makers about health issues.

The effort includes experts from multiple fields, including sociology,
engineering and business.

Among the pilot programs helped by the grant is one headed by Kenneth Hudson, an
associate professor of sociology. Hudson is researching the connection between
labor, labor markets and health.

He has been collecting U.S. census data and
conducting lengthy interviews to determine which neighborhoods are most at-risk
for health problems and poverty.

He found nine communities below the federal poverty line,
including parts of Prichard and multiple parts of Mobile, putting them particularly at-risk.

The areas are the first target of the Center for Healthy
Communities' community engagement program.

The center has created a pipeline of
sorts to encourage high school students in areas with health disparities to
pursue careers in healthcare, educate others on health and bring their
communities up.

The community engagement program also recruits community members to encourage healthy behavior and share awareness of healthy
lifestyles.

"This outreach is unique because it allows us to reach
more people with important messages that typically only occur in a traditional
clinical setting," Crook said.

The grant will also go towards funding research into early
predictors of cardiovascular disease, recognized by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention as the number one cause of death in America.

Research into health disparities is a somewhat new idea, making progress measurement tricky, according
to USA officials. To help determine a community's progress, Dr. Martha Arrieta,
director of research at the Center for Healthy Communities, will lead research
into the best places to gather neighborhood information.

Her goal is to create a sort of "birds-eye view"
of a community's health, Arrieta said.

It is the third time the Center for Healthy Communities has
seen this grant from the National Institutes of Health renewed. It was
originally awarded to the center in 2004.

The grant makes up approximately 90 percent of the center's
funding, according to Crook.